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Month: April 2017

Nuclear Impact Utah – Poets on the Nuclear West is an event presented by the Rock Canyon Poets and Pioneer Book, featuring contributors to the new Shabda Press anthology Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands, including Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen, Trish Hopkinson, Michael McLane, Amy Brunvand, & C. Wade Bentley. Plus, clips from the film Downwindersand Q&A with filmmakers Tim Skousen & Tyler Bastian. The event begins with a poetry open mic followed by contributor readings and film clips at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 9, 2017 at Pioneer Book in Provo, followed by a brief Q&A with the filmmakers. The event and open mic are open to the general public. No ticket necessary.

Rock Canyon Poets was co-founded by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen and Trish Hopkinson in 2015 and was established to develop camaraderie among Utah Valley poets, provide consistent workshopping and reading opportunities, and promote the disciplined study of writing poetry as a serious art form. The group sponsors poetry readings and an open mic on the 2nd Tuesday of every month at Pioneer Book in historic downtown Provo. Membership is by invitation or portfolio submission only.

Pioneer Book is Utah County’s largest used and rare bookshop, carrying titles in a broad range of fields.

Featured readers, who will also be available for signing, are Nuclear Impact contributors, Amy Brunvand, Trish Hopkinson, Michael McLane, Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen, and C. Wade Bentley. In addition, portions of the documentary Downwinders, by Tim Skousen and Tyler Bastian, will be screened. Many people think of nuclear testing, fallout, and the Cold War arms race as distant history, but these stories are ongoing and now evolving. Downwinders tells the tragic story of the people who lived downwind from the nuclear test site in Nevada in the 50s and 60s. No one would listen to their plight until it was rumored that one of the victims of the fallout was John Wayne, who was in the area shooting the ill-fated film The Conqueror for Howard Hughes. It tells the story of the people of the Southwest and beyond whose lives were changed forever after the government decided to use them as “human guinea pigs” and also attempts to find the answer to the question: Did the government kill John Wayne?

About the Book

Nuclear Impact: Broken Atoms in Our Hands present the symphonic voices of 163 poets living throughout the United States and world, in places such as India, Britain, Ireland, Canada, Philippines, Japan, South Africa, Guam, Singapore, Poland, Australia, France, Vietnam, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Germany, China and Pakistan, on the impact of nuclear power and warfare on human life and the planet. The poems in the anthology take us through Navajo-Hopi reservations, the Nevada desert, Los Alamos, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Three Mile Island, Trinity, air raid drills, Chernobyl, Pripyat, Ogoturuk Valley, Alaska, Fukushima, nuclear testing in India and Pakistan, and more. Through the words and clarity of these poets, we see the reach of nuclear impact from the desert to the far reaches of the Arctic.

Kimberly Johnson’s most recent collection of poetry is Uncommon Prayer(Persea Books, 2014). She is also the author of critical examinations of Renaissance literature and of translations of Virgil’s Georgics​ (Penguin Classics, 2009) and the works of Hesiod (Northwestern University Press, 2017). Recipient of grants and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, she lives in Salt Lake City.

Johnson visits Pioneer Book as a guest of the Rock Canyon Poets. The reading and open mic are open to the general public.

To help celebrate poetry month, KRCL is featuring a different Utah poet every day this week on their Radioactive public affairs program at 6pm on weekdays. Specifically, these poets are Utah county poets and members of the local poetry group Rock Canyon Poets. Tune in for National Poetry Month announcements and to hear the poets read one of their original poems.